


A better match

by Petra



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Amnesia, Collars, Dom/sub, F/M, kink bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-27
Updated: 2010-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-10 20:09:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/103790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The point where Sam realizes he's in trouble is not the first bank heist, not the third argument with Gene over whether their suspicions could be right, not even when he knows the truth in ways that make him wonder if this is a new sort of madness, if he's going to wake up in Camberwick Green himself this time--no, the point where it all comes together is when he's on his knees in a room he's locked himself, a heavy leather collar round his neck and Annie smiling down at him like she wants to save his soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A better match

**Author's Note:**

> Collars for Kink Bingo. [Chicago's Most Wanted Test](http://petra.dreamwidth.org/449537.html) with consensual, though not quite RACK, D/s. Thanks to [](http://aphyde.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**aphyde**](http://aphyde.dreamwidth.org/) for prereading.

The point where Sam realizes he's in trouble is not the first bank heist, not the argument with Gene over whether their suspicions could be right, not even when he knows the truth in ways that make him wonder if this is a new sort of madness, if he's going to wake up in Camberwick Green himself this time--no, the point where it all comes together is when he's on his knees in a room he'd locked himself, a heavy leather collar round his neck and Annie smiling down at him like she wants to save his soul.

He's had his suspicions for weeks now, since Annie went off undercover trying to infiltrate a disturbing ring of what he's defined as "human traffickers," well before the term is going to come into vogue. She'd disappeared and failed to answer any of their drops or attempts at communications for weeks.

And then the thefts had started, little ones, big ones, all reported by the snouts and informants that Gene and his team maintained to keep an eye on the powers that be in the criminal circles. Anyone who dared steal from Warren's successor, the heirs to Tony Crane's club-casino fortune, the syndicate that controlled most of the brothels in town--they were brave, whoever they were.

They are brave, they are beautiful, they are Annie, and she keeps him at arm's length right up until she has him on his knees, begging like he isn't quite, quite begging right this very minute.

She's supposed to drop the facade as soon as they're somewhere safe, or he's been expecting her to. He'd arranged the hotel room, by the night, not the hour, and got word to her through an informant or twelve, however the information got passed.

She's met with him, she's kissed him, and she's not entirely herself, not with that smile. Or she's herself, and Sam has never known her.

He can't tell which is better, though his cock has a definite opinion on the matter. It votes that any Annie who's inclined to strap a collar round his neck while she kisses him and says, "Good to see you again, DI Tyler," is superior to all other possible Annies. Never mind that she's also a thief, a felon of the first degree by the time he's caught up with her.

He wants her, and when she says, "Tell me what you're planning this week," he should say no. He's known that all along.

"I can't," he says, and she frowns, so sweet, so sad, so much like the Annie he knows that he can't begin to guess what happened to her, even though he's starting to realize it matters quite a lot.

"But if you can't tell me, why are you here?" She runs her finger along his cheekbone, delicate, cruel. He doesn't whimper. He's still got his trousers on, collar or no collar, and he doesn't belong to her.

He's beginning to wonder just how far he'll go to fix the latter part, and whether she'll ever forgive him if she gets herself back, if the Annie he remembers is the real one, instead of some sort of early-stage delusion, giving way to this one. "I want to talk to you about the police force," he says. "About your real self, Annie."

"Miss Cartwright, if you please."

The clipped tone goes right down his spine to the parts of his brain trained in the first school he ever attended. He should stop himself, shouldn't let her score a point, shouldn't, damn it all, say "Yes, miss."

But the way she smiles when he does it tells him he didn't have a choice as soon as he gave in to the first part of this. He arranged the meeting and he knew he was putting himself her hands, if not quite how much.

"Tell me about your coppers, then," she says, and he could listen to that edge in her soft voice for years without wanting anything else. "Tell me what your police are going to do to try to stop me next."

Sam bites his lip. "They sent me. Well, not sent me," he corrects himself when she frowns--anything to keep her from frowning, and oh, he is so very in trouble--"I came of my own accord, actually."

That gets him another smile, bright and lovely. "Do you have any backup coming?" she asks, and he knows he should say "yes," however much a lie it is.

"No, miss."

Annie kisses him then, as careful and shy as he's always known she would be, then tugging his collar to adjust the angle, taking his mouth as if she owns it and will never let him have it back. "Good boy. What are your wicked men planning next? Tell me."

Sam swallows and tries to imagine what Gene will say when he learns that Sam not only met with Manchester's latest criminal mastermind, but got on his knees and begged for her. Maybe he'll never learn it. Maybe he'll laugh. "I don't know what they're thinking of doing next. It's my case, and this was my plan, and you know how it's turned out." He spreads his hands, arching his neck to show off the collar though she knows it's there as clearly as he does.

Annie clucks her tongue. "If it's your case, you'll know just what's happening next. Don't tell me lies, DI Tyler. I don't like it."

"Sam," he says, begs.

"Sam." She says it as if she hasn't read his warrant card and doesn't know perfectly well. As if he didn't introduce himself once upon a time with the hope that she'd fix him, that she'd hold his hand and pull him back to reality.

"I'm not lying, Annie--miss. I don't know how to stop you, unless it's by pulling you out of here with your hands behind your back and letting the Guv talk sense into you."

She wrinkles her nose. "I don't think we'd get on, your Guv and I."

"You do," Sam insists. "You work very well together, except for when he's a sexist bastard--which is too often, I know, I'm sorry--but he knows you're bloody brilliant. We all know that."

"You're very sweet for a copper." She kisses him again, her hand in his hair, holding him still when he tries to make it go on longer. "But I don't like working with men who don't respect me, Sam. Why should I say three words to this Guv of yours when I've got you, and you're so very respectful?"

He shakes his head, or he would, but she catches hold of his collar and holds him. He protests, "This is wrong. You have to know that, you have to know that this isn't how it's supposed to work. This isn't you, the crime and the--" he swallows, looks her over, her shorter-than-normal skirt riding up her thighs "--the suspenders."

Sam has crystal-clear memories of the turn of the century, of nylon stockings that hold themselves up like a pair of leggings, but none of them has ever been as viscerally lovely as a lady's legs in the sort that come up to her thighs and are held there. His treacherous libido wants to beg her to let him bury his face between her thighs with the stockings on, sliding against his shoulders.

Annie sighs. "I can't let you bring me in. You know what good I'm doing, you must, or you'd have arrested me already. You're a good copper, Sam, I can see that."

He looks like a thoroughly terrible copper, bent as hell and harder than a rock for the criminal who smiles for all the world like she'd like to hold his leash. Like she knows how much his mouth is watering at the thought of her. "I should take you in right now," he says, as much to remind himself as because he wants to threaten her.

"Maybe. Are you going to?" she asks, hooking her finger through the collar.

Sam's mouth goes dry. There is no level at all where this is sane, but he's given up on sanity. What's one more betrayal of the natural order of things when the other choice is staying with her as long as he can? "No."

Annie's smile makes him shiver. "Good. Then you deserve a nice reward, don't you?"

The only reward he deserves is more madness at this point. "Do I?" He trusts that she won't shoot him, though that would be deserved, too.

"Oh, yes," she says, and tugs her skirt up farther.

Sam blesses whatever fragment of his brain gave way and let this happen.


End file.
